


Girls' Night

by TLvop



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bonding, Chocolate Box Treat, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5998792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TLvop/pseuds/TLvop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A good friendship's kind of like a love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls' Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mlraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlraven/gifts).



1.

There’s a hesitation on the other side of the phone line for a long moment. “I don’t know, Mel,” Natasha says, in that slow way of hers that belies exactly how fast she can move when she’s motivated to.

Melinda waits, pushing herself up onto the counter as she watches her TV dinner rotate in the microwave. She eats healthy when Andrew's in town, because he actually has patience for the grocery store.

Nat sighs. “All right,” she says. “But I get to pick next month’s.”

“You’ll like it,” Melinda assures, mouth quirking in victory.

“How am _I_ going to like  The Notebook?”

Melinda laughs, quiet. She doesn’t say _it’s adorable_ , or _it’s nice being normal_ , or anything so obviously sentimental. Nat wouldn’t trust it, even though it’s true. “I have whiskey. You’ll like it.”

2.

Melinda rolls, coming back up on her feet, and grins. There’s the taste of metal in her mouth, even wearing a mouth guard, and her opponent’s face is bruising. Natasha hasn’t waited for her to catch her footing, is coming for her, and Melinda waits for her, dodging at the last moment, and landing two blows and then—

She blinks up from the mat.

Natasha puts a hand out, and drags her upward. Melinda takes her mouth guard out, and makes a face.

“Accounting’s making you slow,” Natasha says, mock-mournful, mischief in the corner of her eyes. Even with her increased healing, that cheek’s going to be purple for a few days. Good thing she’s on recovery. It’s still going to be a little awkward at the fancy Vietnamese place Natasha’s insisted they go to tonight.

“ _Have_ you filed your expense report yet?”

Nat groans, and Melinda grins.

After a light elbow in the ribs, it turns into a laugh.

3.

Nobody comes to see Melinda for days, after Phil dies. There’s so much to do. There’s so many people dead who aren’t Phil at all.

She’s been sitting with her paperwork, and occasionally fielding calls from panicked agents who don’t know what to do and need a calm voice from their past when all of the ones around them are swamped or dead. A former SO, a former senior field agent, the old well-worn _boss, there’s a—_ ringing in her ears even as she stamps another file complete and closes it.

It’s 3pm on a Thursday, the afternoon of the funeral of Phil Coulson that Melinda May missed, and a bruise-stiffened Black Widow wearing street clothes walks carefully into her office.

Melinda hesitates, and puts down her pen.

“Do you need something?”

“I brought whiskey,” Natasha Romanoff says, carefully, and leans against a wall. “It’s in my car, though, so...”

“It’s 3,” Melinda says, blank.

“Fuck ‘em. Mel,” and her voice is gentle but it’s also perfectly confident, “we’re getting out of here.”

Melinda stands up, and puts her hand on the side of her cubicle. The rest of her office is gone, anyway. Grief counselling. Grieving leave. There’s too much complication to the current paperwork to need many people, anyway. They’d just make it worse.

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay. Where?”

“I’ve got a hotel. I figure the Golden Girls is as good a place to start as any.”


End file.
